The province says it will review its rules on remediation of contaminated sites in light of a massive spill at a Calgary gas station that threatens to leave taxpayers with a $4.3 million cleanup bill.

Environment Minister Shannon Phillips said she’s upset the Gas Plus outlet in Bowness remains a potential hazard five years after authorities learned that 7,000 litres of gasoline had leaked into the soil beneath the city neighbourhood.

“The Gas Plus issue has gone on far too long and I certainly feel for the families that have been forced to live with this mess for years,” Phillips said.

“We are going to develop some legislation with teeth, and some legislation and regulations that protect the environment and health.”

While Gas Plus built a wall 10 metres into the ground to contain the spilled fuel, a new report for Alberta Environment and Parks says the barrier may have “limited efficacy” in keeping contamination from moving through porous bedrock toward adjacent homes and the Bow River.

Frustrated at what it called the company’s “continued unwillingness” to undertake appropriate remedial activities to lower the groundwater contamination and ensure toxic fumes don’t impact the health of nearby homeowners, the department took over responsibility for the cleanup in mid-2014.

While the province says they will pursue Gas Plus for the additional cost of completing the remediation, government financial statements say there is a “low” probability it will recover even some of the expense.

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Paige MacPherson, Alberta director with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said the government needs to better enforce its environmental regulations and look at mandatory insurance for station owners to cover cleanup costs from future spills.

When complaints of fumes from a neighbouring property first surfaced in April 2010, the department closed its investigation without finding the source of the problem.

After the company finally alerted the department to the leak three months later, it took a provincial inspector another month to reply because he was on an extended vacation.

“The government needs to be more diligent in enforcing the rules it has on the books,” Macpherson said.

“A month is too long to respond to an e-mail about a leak that has filled people’s homes with fumes.”

Phillips did not directly answer question about whether department staff acted quickly enough when concerns about the Gas Plus leak first surfaced.

“I can’t speak for previous governments, I can only speak for this one,” she said.

Faced with mounting cleanup costs at abandoned or orphan stations three decades ago, the U.S government passed a law that required operators to show they had $1 million in liability coverage in case of a spill.

That legislation spawned the creation of state-level schemes like Montana’s Petroleum Tank Release Compensation Board that covers cleanup costs at stations through a levy of approximately 15 cents on every fill-up.

“It’s not a licence for operators to pollute because they’re only eligible to have a claim paid in full if they were in compliance with environmental laws at the time of the leak,” board executive director Terry Wadsworth said.

“It’s a carrot and stick approach to encourage operators to keep close track of their inventories, ensure their inspection is up to date and report any suspected spill promptly.”

The $7 million a year that the fund collects each year on fuel sales is also used to remediate orphan contaminated sites that were abandoned by station operators decades ago.

Officials with Alberta Environment and Parks were unable to provide numbers on how many former or current gas stations and bulk in the province are contaminated, but an online repository of environmental site assessments lists approximately 800 sites where there are or were petroleum storage tanks that may have leaked into surrounding soils.

McPherson said polluters should be paying directly for the cleanup of former spills and any new ones that may occur.

“Insurance for stations should be mandatory so that taxpayers aren’t stuck with the cleanup bill, but I don’t think making consumers pay at the pump is the right way of covering that cost,” she said.

While no Canadian jurisdictions require station owners to have liability coverage against spills, Ontario has taken steps to lessen the risk by requiring that all single-wall tanks be replaced with double-walled reservoirs that are less likely to leak.

Don Edgecombe, operations manager with the Petroleum Tank Management Association of Alberta, said there are still approximately 390 tanks at 175 operating stations around the province where a single layer of metal separates toxic fuel from the surrounding soil.

“They’re mostly in smaller towns and most of them have been there for decades,” Edgecombe said.

“Even if they have corrosion protection, they’re all going to leak eventually.”

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